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Anianet – bringing Chinese and Western scholars together

PLoS has quietly been expanding its reach in China for a while with the help of Charlesworth, who are one of our publishing partners and have an in-depth knowledge of the Chinese scientific market. They are kindly taking our message with them to the Beijing book fair this September and have also sent information about PLoS to Chinese scientists.

PLoS ONE has published the work of almost 2,000 Chinese researchers, you can read an interview with one of them here. For a few weeks, we’ve been following the growth of a new professional networking site called Anianet, which connects Chinese scholars to their counterparts in America and Europe. It’s grown rapidly since its launch in late July from a few hundred folks to over 1,800 today.

PLoS has customized some content for our audience in China, including a translation of the very popular professional career development series, the Ten Simple Rules
and Anianet are featuring it on their site.

Easier access for western journal editors and funding agencies to learn about their work

Being better informed about the latest news, articles, grants, and meetings in their field

Anianet encourages Chinese scholars to create free profiles detailing their professional accomplishments in a format that is optimized for a western audience. The goals are to increase their international visibility and create lasting and meaningful links among researchers sharing common interests.

In addition, Anianet provides vital information to its members, including western grants, research partnerships, jobs, fellowships, meetings, publications, and other opportunities. In short, Anianet serves as the “western base of operations” for Chinese scholars. Here is how Anianet works.

First, a member takes a few minutes to create a Member Profile. Membership is absolutely free, no special technical skills are required, and is open to Chinese scholars and Chinese nationals working anywhere in the world. The Member Profile describes a researcher’s interests, institutional affiliation, publishing history, teaching experience, awards, collaboration histories, and other details of his professional accomplishments. A member can enhance his profile by including pictures, a CV, links to published articles and presentations, and so forth. Profiles can be easily updated by members at any time.

In addition to highlighting professional interests and achievements in an encapsulated format designed to appeal to western editors, reviewers, and funding agencies, members use Anianet as a means to better connect with the goings-on in their field.

What conferences are upcoming?

What breakthroughs have just been published in a journal or reported in the mainstream media?

What visiting fellowships and grant opportunities have recently been announced?

Anianet collects this information from a variety of sources and makes it available to members automatically on their profile pages.

Members are notified only of that information that is relevant to them – computational biologists get computational biology information, bacteriologists get bacteriology information, and so forth. These information feeds help members keep up to date with global developments and opportunities in their field.